CES hands on: Street Fighter IV is ready to ship

Street Fighter IV was on display at CES this year in effectively its final …

Street Fighter IV is one of the biggest games due out in the first quarter of the year and Capcom was pimping its marquee title in full force at the company's private Planet Hollywood Hotel meeting suite. While some of the company's other products were still getting some final tweaks, the latest iteration of the acclaimed fighting franchise is virtually ready to release.

Our final hands-on with the game was spent exploring the new characters and getting into the game's now-finalized, technical combat details. Veteran players will be surprised to see Street Fighter return to a more primal and simplistic state. Gone are the excessive number of "techs" and in their place is a more simple, tighter engine that hearkens back to the days of Super Street Fighter 2.

Aside from a single force cancel that can be properly timed to counter certain moves, blocking and tactical use of specials and normal attacks is key—not memorizing and using a list of additional, non-character related techs.

That's not to say that the game has been dumbed down, though. I played a few games with Capcom's Seth Killian and he took me through some of the game's more complicated counter and run maneuvers. The game focuses on using feints and cancels effectively to basically "deke" out the opponent. This has always been one of the strong points of the franchise, and one of the main reasons why SSF2 is hailed as the best man-versus-man fighting game ever made. I fully expect Street Fighter IV to become the new tournament standard alongside Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and 3rd Strike.

For average players, though, the new characters will be the main attraction after the new graphical presentation and HD support. After playing around with the new characters thus far, Abel, El Feurte, and Gouken appear to be the stand-outs. Strangely enough, they all play fairly similarly to other marquee characters, which perhaps shows the bias of myself and the other veteran fighters at the show.

Abel, a hulking brute, will feel familiar to Zangeif and T-Hawk players; he's bigger and slower but deals more damage with each hit and has some fairly powerful throws. Abel distinguishes himself from the pack with a more diverse set of combos, though; his hands are faster than most of the other big players. On the opposite end of the spectrum, El Feurte plays quick, fast, and loose—much like Vega. Good players will be able to dance about the screen with wall-jumps and quick sprints, flying in to get some quick jabs in and then getting out of harm's way.

The most powerful of the newcomers, and likely to become a hardcore fan fighting favorite, is Gouken. For years, Akuma has reigned in the hands of advanced players as the most powerful character in the series. The antithesis of Akuma, and his ultimate competition, comes in the form of Gouken. Gouken, who for those interested in the series lore is Ryu and Ken's master, brings to the table a strong array of faster and stronger "staple" moves; he has the fireballs, uppercuts, and spin kicks of his students but in much more powerful forms. Expect brutal Gouken and Akuma battles hitting YouTube (with appropriate commentary) shortly after release.

For fighting game fans, Street Fighter IV is primed to be a game-of-the-year contender for 2009. Capcom has perfected the art of making fighting games that are about as well-balanced and tight as can be found—especially when combined with the new arcade sticks. Watch out for a full review of the game when it launches on February 17.